Uber Teams With Google’s Waymo to Offer Driverless Ride-Hailing

Google-owned self-driving vehicle firm Waymo has teamed with Uber to expand its service.

The partnership, announced Tuesday (May 23), is set to launch later this year in Waymo’s newly-expanded operating territory in Phoenix, Arizona and will include local delivery and ride-hailing.

“Since both companies were founded in 2009, Waymo and Uber have in their own ways each revolutionized access to mobility,” the companies said in a news release. “Now, we’re partnering to bring together Waymo’s world-leading autonomous driving technology with the massive scale of Uber’s ridesharing and delivery networks.”

According to the release, Uber users can order rides or deliveries from Waymo’s autonomous vehicles via the Uber and Uber Eats apps or via the Waymo One app. The companies say Waymo’s Phoenix operations are the largest fully autonomous service area in the world at 180 square miles.

“We’re excited to offer another way for people to experience the enjoyable and life-saving benefits of full autonomy,” said Tekedra Mawakana, co-CEO of Waymo. “Uber has long been a leader in human-operated ridesharing, and the pairing of our pioneering technology and all-electric fleet with their customer network provides Waymo with an opportunity to reach even more people.”

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi added, “Fully autonomous driving is quickly becoming part of everyday life, and we’re excited to bring Waymo’s incredible technology to the Uber platform.”

Uber and Waymo have worked together before. Last year, the two Waymo Via, the company’s self-driving truck unit, inked a deal with Uber’s Freight business to help customers deploy autonomous trucks more easily. Uber sold its self-driving unit to Aurora, a Waymo rival, at the end of 2020.

The partnership comes amid a host of other driverless technology projects, such as the recent collaboration between British grocery chain Asda and autonomous vehicle startup Wayve to bring groceries to customers using self-driving vehicles.

The year-long pilot — kicking off in West London’s Park Royal section — “will give the supermarket the ability to autonomously deliver groceries to a catchment area of over 170,000 residents across 72,000 households in London,” per a news release.

And earlier this year, the autonomous vehicle firms Goggo Network and Oxbotica began working together to promote driverless delivery in Spain, combining the U.K.-based Oxbotica’s autonomous driving technology with Goggo’s middle- and last-mile delivery services.

In the U.S., meanwhile, supermarket chain Kroger announced plans in March to use self-driving box trucks from the autonomous vehicle company Gatik to transport merchandise from Kroger’s fulfillment center in Dallas to its stores.